Here’s Why You Should Outline a Book Before the First Draft

\If you’re a writer looking to write your first book, you might be hearing some conflicting ideas about outlining a book or not. Some writers tend to just jump into a story–and I used to be like that until I actually started outlining my books. Once I began to outline my stories, I found that my ideas flowed significantly easier, my organization for the story made sense, and I was able to avoid things like plot holes and pitfalls in a story that can affect the reader’s experience. So, here’s why you should outline your book before you even start on your first draft and why it’s a practice you should maintain for every book you write afterwards.

Why Should You Outline a Book Before Writing?

Your Story Goals are Clearer

When you go to write a book, it helps to have a clear understanding of what your goals are for the story. Creating an outline allows you to do just that. You form the main plot points out, the character arcs, and what your main themes and goals are for your story. This way, you can make it clear to yourself as a writer what you want to do by the end of the story, even if you don’t end up totally sticking to your outline.

Avoid Plot Holes

Another big thing with outlining a book is that you can avoid plot holes early on in the story. You can ensure that you understand everything that’s going to happen and how it will happen before you start writing, so if you notice something’s wrong, you can fix it right away. The outline essentially puts your story into perspective for your brain and can save you from needing to make any major edits later on.

An Outline is a Map for Your Book

Another purpose that I find an outline has is acting as though it’s a map for your story. It’s essentially like a path that you have to take from start to finish and can see the whole entire process of your story out on paper. The idea of a book map is just like a regular map that you’d use to travel: You have a clear direction that you’re taking and you won’t get lost easily.

An Outline Saves Time

It may seem like an outline actually adds more time to the writing process, but that’s not true. An outline is effective for saving time in the long run. You have an idea of what your story is going to look like before you start writing it, so you can actually focus on writing without having to think through every single major plot point and detail. It also helps to reduce the amount of times you’ll need to possibly rewrite your story, as you already know what’s going to happen, when it will happen, and why it happens within the context of your story.

An Outline Actually Improves the Story’s Structure

Having an outline is really helpful when it comes to the structure of your story. Having a strong structure for any story is a great way to keep your narrative upright with a sort of backbone. The outline helps you to organize your plot in a manner that’s clear, logical, and cohesive. Additionally, you’ll be able to focus more on things like pacing, tension, suspense, the characters and more when you’ve already planned out the major events.

Outlines Keep the Subplots in Focus

Having an outline is a great thing for when you’re writing multiple subplots in a single story. Keeping your story in focus and having a clear directive will let you formulate subplots that actually add to the main plot. Furthermore, creating an outline lets you add the subplots into the main plot of your story without you needing to struggle too much with trying to balance it later when you go to write.

Your Characters Will Stay More Consistent

Having an outline going into the writing process will actually help you keep your characters more consistent. You can make sure that you’re tracking things like how a character will develop by adding the character arc into your outline. Creating a proper character arc helps to enhance your story and keeps readers engaged, which is why an outline can be a really big help too.

If You Have Research…

If your story is one that requires a lot of research, and this is true for a lot of books out there, then having an outline will let you identify the parts of your story that will most likely require the highest amount of research. This will then help you actually go into the research process with an idea of what precisely you will be researching in your story.

You Can Beat Writer’s Block Too!

A lot of the times, before I started outlining my books, I found that I was hitting writer’s blocks with stories that I had otherwise been super excited to write. What I uncovered was that I just wasn’t sure where to go in my story and I didn’t have a gameplan, so I was pretty much stuck staring at a blank screen on my laptop. What happened is that when I started outlining my stories, I was able to have more structure and thus I was able to come up with something to write even if I felt like I personally had no ideas. I had an idea already written down for me, which was super helpful.

It Breaks Down the Writing Process

Another big thing with having an outline for your book before you start your first draft is that it actually helps you break down the writing process into smaller, more manageable chunks of work. You may feel overwhelmed thinking about writing a giant epic fantasy book, but having an outline makes it feel more manageable. You can break down the writing process into daily word counts and feel much more at ease when it comes to the actual first draft process. This, in turn, also helps fight writer’s block before you can be affected by it.

An Outline Sets Milestones

Having an outline helps you set milestones that you can celebrate as you get there. If you finish Act 1 of your story, you’ll feel much more accomplished and having an outline will let you know when you’ve actually gotten to the end of Act 1, thus adding onto the sense of accomplishment.

The outline also helps you stay motivated and on-top of things because you’ll know precisely where you’re going to go next with your story.

An Outline, However, is Not Set in Stone

One thing you should keep in mind when you go to write your first draft is that your outline is not the end-all be-all of your story. I’ve had many instances where I went to write a book, outlined the entire thing down to each individual chapter, and then realized that I didn’t want to pursue that idea anymore. That’s fine. You just go and re-outline your story and that’s it! The outline you make is not the last stop for your book. It just gives you a skeleton to go off of when you start writing so you don’t feel so overwhelmed in the writing process itself.

Why I Started Outlining Books

When I was younger, I actually never outlined my stories. I just started writing and would come up with ideas on a whim and write them down, adding and removing things until I felt relatively comfortable enough with my overall story. However, what I found as I kept doing this was that I was hitting roadblocks often in my writing process.

Without a clear direction, I found my brain often scrambling to try and come up with ideas to fill out the pages with, and then not being sure what the series would end up being like. This is probably why when I was younger, I scrapped a lot of series I started and never finished. However, when I actually began to outline my books, I found that it facilitated the writing process dramatically and helped me keep things in focus.

For instance, for my series, The Fallen Age Saga, I actually began to outline my books and I ended up with a much more clear idea of where each book in the series would start and where it would end, as well as what my main objectives were leading up to the end-game of the whole series.

Conclusion

Outlining a book is a really great way to help get your story in context before you actually start the first draft. It helps to clarify the story’s end-goal, gives you a map to go off of, helps you save time in the writing process, keeps your story structured, allows you to avoid plot holes and unclear story points, as well as keeps you motivated and away from the clutches of writer’s block.

If you want to learn more about outlining books, check out these resources:

Before you head on out, be sure to check out my series, The Fallen Age Saga, and don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter so you don’t miss out on any updates, posts, announcements, book releases and more!